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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Sept 22 2005 at 6:43am | IP Logged
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Lately I've really been concerned about my ds's writing ability  . He just hates to write and it is evident in his penmanship as well as his ability to write well. After a visit this weekend from my mil and fil, and after several comments from our former babysitter, I'm worried. The mil and fil's comment was "what if you have to put him in school? His writing will be totally unacceptable!"  Later, in a conversation with the babysitter she said, "Oh, we had to write a ton in middle school!". Well, I've always tried to make life a little more easy for my ds by doing a lot of writing for him. But now that he's in 6th grade, I'm worried that I did the wrong thing. So, do I have a question here or am I just rambling? I guess I'm just rambling. Sorry. I just don't know if I should get tough all of a sudden, or not worry so much. Maybe it would help if some of you could tell me about how much your 6th grade students write on a regular basis? Thanks for your help!
Becky
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Natalia
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| Posted: Sept 22 2005 at 6:50am | IP Logged
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Have you look into the Bravewriter program? bravewriter If you do a search here you will probably seen this program mentioned and discussed several times. I think it is a fun and gentle approach for reluctant writers.
Natalia
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Mary G
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| Posted: Sept 22 2005 at 7:02am | IP Logged
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Becky:
What about letting him learn keyboarding -- using Mavis Beacon or something -- and then starting him out slow -- copywork or letters to someone or even his Christmas wish list. Show him that writing can be a great way to communicate -- have him email dad at work or a cousin far away.
Don't worry too much about his handwriting -- maybe he'll be a doctor some day  -- as most communication these days is typed! Even colleges are now requiring kids to bring pc's with them and my ds in high school is required to turn in all work typed....
Hope this helps!
Blessings,
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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Donna
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| Posted: Sept 22 2005 at 7:46am | IP Logged
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Becky,
This discussion came up last night at our Mom's group. Funny...it was ME who brought it up !!!
My son is in 7th grade and I, too, am feeling such a pressure about his writing capability. Viv reminded me of a discussion on this board about writing. Not all children will be great writers. Those who are not will surely be gifted in other areas. The ladies at our meeting encouraged me to work with Jackson....yet not overwhelm him. Have him write about things he enjoys. Seems like good advise. I tend to go overboard on his work load because I feel that any failure on his part will be a reflection back on me and the way I have chosen to teach him .
I enrolled Jackson in an internet writing program a couple of weeks ago. I was suprised at how excited he is to get his e-mail each morning from his teacher. He also seems to give her alot more than he will give me. Maybe your son would benefit from having someone else to report to each day. We use Write Guide. Our teacher is Catholic and very very encouraging. I only signed up for a month to see how it would go....but plan to extend our membership since Jackson seems to like the program  .
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Donna
DH, Keven
Jason, Stevie, Marie, Jackson, Clara, and Aaron
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Moments Like These
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ALmom
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| Posted: Sept 22 2005 at 10:43am | IP Logged
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We also have reluctant writers. We are still trying to figure it out. Keyboarding has helped our ds as has a discussion about how to organize his thoughts - stepping through several scenarios and jumping on a passion for Vikings.
We were originally trying to inspire him with various very lovely things, but what really did it was talking to him about his interests(he is always talking to me about his readings in history - Vikings, right now and has engaged in a lot of play acting lego games. I sort of lead him to discover ways to create something out of this. He was excited to write a story about Vikings especially when I substituted it for some written history assignments (on Vikings)and the Stories With a View stuff from CHC (I think Stories With a View was too sweet for him) which for some reason was like pulling teeth.
It helped him to know that there are several steps to the writing process - brainstorming and organizing ideas, to rough draft. Knowing that the first go was simply to get ideas down on paper - no worry about spelling, grammar or punctuation was a huge help. I asked leading questions in the brainstorming/organizing and he made huge bubble charts - not exactly how I would have organized but I let him be. I guess I illustrated some of the thought sequences that go into organizing thoughts so that someone else can figure out where you are going with your ideas. I also explained about professional authors writing and rewriting many times so he wasn't stressed about all things at once. I wanted him to get his ideas down in some sort of coherent way without any worries about spelling, grammar or punctuation. I think one of his biggest problems is that his mind races much faster than his ability to do the actual physical writing or even typing. He knows ahead of time that we will edit, checking spelling and grammar, etc as well as fine tuning what and how we say things. There was a great explanation of how to teach writing in CHC Middle School plans.
I also did not put a time limit on his first assignment, as my goal is just to get him writing and organizing ideas. I also encouraged him to do the whole process on the computer. His sister is helping him with the editing which he seems to respond to better than me. I think there is something about not wanting to show me (the teacher) the work until it is closer to perfected. He has written more in the last 2 weeks than he ever has before. He even had trouble writing organized letters to friends/family before. I haven't seen this yet, so I don't know if it is any better organized than his personal letters, but he has joyfully written every day for 2 weeks so far, working on that story, which is a huge step forward.
As far as handwriting goes - we have that completely seperate from any writing assignments and it is one of the main reasons that I do use workbooks. Workbook questions do allow a short review and keep handwriting going. (Until very recently, copying was a very, very tedious and slow process because of visual memory - but copying poetry or something like that might be more enjoyable for a child that doesn't take an hour to copy a few words because they have to do it one letter at a time. As those skills are improving, I may transition to copying more for handwriting). I have asked that he do all workbooks in cursive and allow everything else in whatever form he wants - typed or printed. I do not use lengthy workbooks - more CHC style so the work is not overwhelming and he does get a bit of grammar review or science vocabulary in the process. He is my child that does learn better with writing and going off on his own to ponder. I do not want his ability to do the physical act of writing to so lag behind his thinking that he doesn't develop the muscle tone for note taking, writing his own things, etc. However, I am not a stickler for perfection. I pay more attention to things that help speed like how tense is his hand when he is writing, does he stop and start while writing cursive, etc. I don't care if the slant is there or not and whether all the hooks and bumps are there unless it impacts readability.
I look forward to seeing other ideas as this area is a work in process in our household. There is something to practice making the process easier, but I don't want to overwhelm either. One thing I have discovered is that somehow demonstrating the how of it helps some children. We even used a essay writing program from WIN(not the creative writing one which was a bust) for our oldest which helped her a lot. It was a brief step by step approach, contrived to be sure, but it did give our oldest confidence before launching out to experiment with writing style more on her own. I think we did it in 8th grade. But she was our dc that froze unless she had a clear set of step by step how to do it rules for a first attempt.
Looking forward to everyone's ideas.
Janet
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Erin
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| Posted: Sept 23 2005 at 5:08am | IP Logged
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This is so amazing that you  are feeling like me. Like a couple of you ladies, my children have not been required to write much. Now my dd12, is going to be 7th grade after Christmas I am starting to stress too 
We have tried many of Janet's suggestions and similar. Just when I was starting to worry, they write! And what they have written in the past couple of days has been brilliant 
Should I just back of and expect it will just happen? My instinct says no. That they need constant opportunities and encouragement  to write.
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esperanza
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| Posted: Nov 18 2005 at 8:40pm | IP Logged
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Well, gee, my ds is 14.5 yrs and we are just starting to grasp grammar  I had him evaluated this Fall and he is basically a late bloomer and needs more consistency and repetition than his sisters did. His motor output is very slow. Last yr I had him do copywork and that greatly improved his penmanship...but he is still slow. I really don't know what to use for writing. He is so reluctant. I was considering borrowing my friends Writing Strands again. I have a tutor come twice a week. I really needed outside help to get his attention to care about his schooling. We have had lots of difficult family situations and the poor guy has been neglected for a while.
I would appreciate prayers as I greatly put forth effort to motivate and encourage my ds. Any advice on simple material to help him with the writing process that would appeal to an older student.
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In His Peace,
Tammy Gonzalez in VA
dh-Johnny
mom to Tara-'85, Noelle-'88, Jeremy-'91, Elizabeth-'93, Emma-'96, Dominic-'99, Gabriel-'01, Elijah-03
and Jacinta-06
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Nov 19 2005 at 6:29am | IP Logged
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Hi Tammy,
I will certainly pray for you. Since I wrote the original post here I have seen some improvement with DS but I realized I had to change my attitude . I really like Brave Writer and incorporate many of the suggestions there . One thing I found that I have to do is have my ds write about something that HE thinks is worth the effort. For instance, after fretting over how messy his copy work is and how I can barely read any other written work he does, he had the opportunity to write a letter to a boy we sponsor from the Dominican Republic. I told DS that this is quite an opportunity for him because the little boy we are sponsoring loves football (soccer) and loves to read - my ds's favorite things too. DS took the assignment to write this boy a letter very seriously and it came out beautifully!!! I've never seen such perfect handwriting from this child! We had to make a few corrections (punctuation etc.) but he was very willing to re-write when we were through. Yes, I actually said he was willing to re-write! That in itself is a miracle. So, I learned a lesson here...I learned that what I think is a great thing to write about, he might not and vice-versa. I have to let him make more choices. He has to see that there is a reason for this whole writing thing.
I don't mean to go on and on but there is one other thing we started doing that has really taken off. We call them "monthlies". Each month we will choose a fish, a bird, a mammal, a reptile, a state, a country, an insect a book, a battle and a landmark. DS and the littles use the many Dover coloring books we have around here to find the chosen fish, bird or whatever and color a picture of it. Then they are to write a little about it. These are short paragraphs. Maybe 4-5 sentences long. The page is then placed in either their nature notebook, their geography notebook (these entries are accompanied by a map they have traced and a flag they have colored), or their Book of Centuries. This was Ds's idea so I told him as long as he did it neatly we would, because this will be a really nice record of things he has learned about through the years. Well he jumped right on it and is doing a great job!  Now, I know it sounds like TONS of work, but it's really not too bad. We have four days of school and we use the fifth day for our "Monthlies". We do 2 or 3 of the items each '"Monthlies Day" and by the end of the month we've done something from each category. These are done mostly independently so it's no trouble for me. (The littles, by the way, usually just color a picture. DD (6) will write a sentence or two.) Ds just asked if we could add another "Monthly" to the list. He noticed the Dover "Rocks and Minerals" coloring book and thought that would make a nice addition to our Monthlies. Well, I have to buy the coloring book, but to me, all this great writing makes it worth it. I suppose he could just draw the picture, but since drawing is not his strength, I'm afraid to frustrate him. I don't want him to lose interest in the project because he cannot draw well. Sorry to ramble. Just wanted to offer some suggestions!
Becky
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Nov 19 2005 at 6:39am | IP Logged
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Me again.. . I just wanted to add that DS still has to do written work that he doesn't think is so great - copywork (even though I try to have him copy passages from his current or favorite books), grammar work and even math (he asks if he can just do it in his head and give me the answers orally!!!) . But I have relaxed quite a bit because I see that he can write better than I originally thought. I was worried because I didn't think he COULD. Now I know he CAN, he just doesn't want to. Along with being a little more relaxed though, he and I both know that I can now have higher expectations. It has become HIS resposibility to do a good job. It is no longer my responsibility to make him (he just needs frequent reminders of that !!). Hope this makes sense.
Just another addition. The idea in the previous post worked for us because it is something DS came up with and because these are things he is interested in. Something like this would be very tedious work for a child that doesn't care much for kinds of fish, mammals etc. I can already see my second ds (only 4) will someday probably prefer to write summaries of Monday Night Football games and discuss them with his Dad!!!!!
Becky
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Feeling pressure about writing
